Tools To Improve Mental Health
Juggling your mental health and personal wellbeing is one of the hardest tasks a person can undertake in their lifetime, and unlike whisky and filing taxes, it doesn’t necessarily get better with age.
According to Mental Health America, the 10 Tools for Resiliency—proven tools that help you feel stronger and more hopeful—include connecting with others, creating joy and satisfaction, and staying positive. They sound great, sure, but what exactly do these things entail? What are concrete, specific measures we can take to connect, create joy, and stay positive?
1. Connecting with Others
71 percent of people surveyed by Mental Health America stated they turn to friends or family in times of stress. Even small, day-to-day interactions can help diminish stress levels. A coworker remembering your birthday, your partner hugging you hello, a friend telling you a funny joke.
Social connection comes in many forms, so don’t feel too pressured to only socialize in one particular way. Sometimes, it looks like a heart-to-heart, deep conversation about the ups and downs of life. Other times, it’s reading a 1-line text that makes you smile.
Don’t forget to also show the people in your life how much you support and appreciate them—trust us, you’ll get that positive energy right back. What goes around comes around!
2. Creating Joy and Satisfaction
Free up some downtime to just have fun. Get in touch with your inner child and do something you used to love doing as a kid, like playing arcade games or visiting the park. Do that thing you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time, motivation, or confidence for—picking up a new language, going indoor skydiving. Pursue a creative interest like writing or music making. Trigger those feel-good hormones!
And then? Soak up all that joy and bask in it. Some of the best ways to savor good things in life is to express moments of happiness you’re feeling with your whole body, practice mindfulness, and share your experiences with others.
3. Staying Positive
You might have heard this one a million times and then some, to the point that hearing it makes you roll your eyes. But, as trite as it is, there are proven health benefits to thinking positively and working yourself out of pessimistic or self-deprecating thought patterns and behaviors.
One effective way to appreciate the positives and boost our moods is to take up a gratitude practice. If you’re not the type of person who’s into journaling, meditation, gardening, or other typical gratitude rituals, that’s okay! Sometimes we just don’t have the time, space, or resources to build these habits.
Instead, consider trying out something like Soul. Once you sign up, it sends you intelligent nudges via text message to share gratitude on convenient days. (No need to download an app!) The timing of Soul’s SMS outreaches are consciously varied and research-informed, as are its gratitude prompts.
So when Soul sends you a prompt like, “What’s one win you had today, so far?”, try to be mindful and specific in the answer you write back. Did you know? Writing helps people absorb ideas way better than just thinking them in their head.
And of course, don’t forget to regularly share your good news. Research studies of people’s reactions to positive developments have shown that participants who told friends about happy events enjoyed them even more.
Staying positive, connecting with others, creating joy and satisfaction—it all comes full circle.